His system has been called dynamic pantheism and this description applies also to much Indian theology which regards God in himself as devoid of all qualities and yet the source of the forces which move the universe. He held that there are four stages of being: primæval being, the ideal world, the soul and phenomena. This, if not exactly parallel to anything in Indian philosophy, is similar in idea to the evolutionary theories of the Sânkhya and the phases of conditioned spirit taught by many Vishnuite sects.
For Plotinus neither moral good nor evil is ultimate: the highest principle, like Brahman, transcends both and is beyond good (ὑπεράγαθον). The highest morality is a morality of inaction and detachment: fasting and abstinence from pleasure are good and so is meditation, but happiness comes in the form of ecstasy and union with God. In human life such union cannot be permanent, though while the ecstasy lasts it affords a resting place on the weary journey, but after death it can be permanent: the divine within us can then return to the universal divine. In these ideas there is the real spirit of India.
FOOTNOTES:
[1102] See Scott Moncrieff, Paganism and Christianity in Egypt, p. 199. Petrie, Personal Religion in Egypt, p. 62. But for a contrary view see Preuschen, Mönchtum und Serapiskult, 1903.
[1103] Flinders Petrie, Man, 1908, p. 129.
[1104] J.R.A.S. 1898, p. 875.
[1105] Hultzsch, Hermas, xxxix. p. 307, and J.R.A.S. 1904, p. 399.
[1106] Nicolaus Damascenus, quoted by Strabo, xv. 73. See also Dion Caasius, ix. 58, who calls the Indian Zarmaros. Zarmanochegas perhaps contains the two words Śramana and Acârya.
[1107] See J.R.A.S. 1907, p. 968.